Considering mars explorer is loosely about space travel, I figured you all might be interested in what real world people are doing about it today -- James Cameron and others are starting a campaign to begin astral mining, sending spacecraft to asteroids to feast on the somewhat abundant quantities of rare materials floating about

Seriously dude... Can you imagine, a CORPORATE space race? All of the greatest minds, again, except they all want one thing.. MONEY money money money. That is the core of human motivation, money. I think we could be seeing some major new technologies if they pull this off. Space travel could finally become "profitable" and thus interesting, opening an entire new gateway to the industry of space travel.... ANd you know what happens in industry... Competition. Everyone will be competing to have the best engines. COmpetition, ANOTHER major motivator, just look at the original space race! THis time it's competition on a small scale, and everyone has the advantage of whatever the other side comes out with, just nto the financial advantage. Oooh this will be beautiful....

Do not forget that this project is designed to *MAKE* money, not spend it. I'm sure the guys behind this have thought that one over many, MANY times, and have probably figured out how to make this whole thing profitable. Besides, what could stimulate our economy better than being the first ones into the space industry. INDUSTRY people, that is, people want to buy space technology from us. This could be a huge boost, and is great propaganda.

I say go for it if you've got the money, talent, and gusto for the project. Why should no one invest in this project in a recession? You as might as well go for it now than never. What else would the money be used for–the governments' extravagant, wasteful spending? Business and competition contribute to the economy. Hopefully much will come out of reinstating space exploration.

Asteroids are smaller, meaning less gravity, meaning easier to land on and take off from, not to mention, some of them can be made from massive amounts of hydrogen, and I quote "enough to fuel all of the space missions we've had so far" off of one room-sized asteroid.

I wonder, though, why they aren't going for asteroids in any of the asteroid belts, they seem focussed only on the ones that zip around the solar system at far orbit :(

@Bob. It will not necessarily give the unemployed jobs. If the unemployed are unemployed because they can't do work or are just very lazy and not very cleaver then they probably won't get a job on a space mining program.

I am also with PC on this one. Even if they do get through the solar storms etc! There might not even be new minerals or whatever on the asteroids! + They have to get the mining thing back in one piece too!

We all ready know for a fact that those asteroids contain the materials we want. Also, I don't think that a recession is really all that much of a set back, I mean, think about it. This isn't government funded, this is corporate funded. One of two things will happen: A: Corporate keeps their money, economy stays where it is. B: Corporate spends that money on thins like space development, economy gets better, as people are now being payed. It certainly won't make things worse for us.

But yeah, getting the materials back is quite a challenge, but we're never going to figure out how unless we try. Who knows! THis could develop new technologies that prove vital in the future, and while THIS iteration of space mining could be a flop, it could pave the way for future iterations to be that much more successful! Not to mention, it gets the world excited about space travel again, it opens people's eyes to the fact that there IS something out there for us, and it IS profitable

The asteroid belt is unpredictable without a powerful enough computer and tracking of ALL asteroids. Asteroids in the belt are always smashing into each other, and a spacecraft going through it would have to go both ways through it.

I wonder if the drones could be programmed to avoid incoming asteroids -- Some sort of quick "jump-off" program that uses radar or some other distance sensing technology to see when its about to be smashed, and jump off/out of the asteroid. But that makes sense! It's probably simpler just to go for the isolated asteroids.

Still it'll give a massive boost which may be what we need. Inflation be inflation, there will be more goods available, which is what we want. In some ways ,we WANT prices to go down, increase the flow of things, but now that I google GDP, it won't decrease the value of a dollar, it'll decrease the value of goods. We WANT decreased good value. we DO NOT want decreased dollar value. Yes, man good god trillions

I am not saying it wouldn't be great if they did get some new goodies of the world ;) but I just don't think that this is the right time. I would love to see their space craft that they are sending up because it would be a vast improvement to the shuttle because we can store much much much more stuff on something that you can hold with one finger then on one of those massive floppy disks :P

But still this is just my opinion. I just think we should wait a bit :)

I guess it depends on the angle. A business would thrive better at a later time, so from the perspective of the venture, you're right. My angle is based on the world economy, which would improve. So we're both right, then :D